(a) Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a device that prevents fire in a battery pack used for an electric vehicle and maintains cooling performance of a battery while at the same time capable of diffusing a fire by cutting off the supply of oxygen to a fire outbreak point.
(b) Background Art
In general, high-voltage batteries have customarily been used in electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles and/or fuel cell vehicles to supply electric power to the driving components (i.e., a motor of the vehicles. The high-voltage battery includes a battery pack capable of generating high voltage by connecting a plurality of battery units or modules which in combination generate a high voltage.
The energy stored in the high-voltage battery is transferred to a motor through an inverter to be used for starting the vehicle, accelerating the vehicle, driving a vehicle at a high efficiency point, and the like and when surplus energy is generated from the engine, the surplus energy is stored in the high-voltage battery by using the motor as a generator.
High-voltage batteries consume a significantly large amount of current, and as a result, high-voltage batteries generate a significantly large amount of heat from the inside thereof. Therefore, a cooling system for cooling the high-voltage battery is often provided in vehicles that use these types of batteries.
Since come cooling systems are not always sufficient, the battery can overheat due to an excessive amount of current or short circuiting. To combat the possibility of fire, a module for extinguishing the fire has been provided in some conventional designs.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional battery pack. In FIG. 1, a tube 130 is provided in an empty space among a plurality of cylindrical battery cells 110. The tube 130 contains a capsule 150 charged with a fire extinguishing material. That is, when fire occurs due to an abnormal operation of the battery, the capsule expands and bursts due to heat, and the fire extinguishing material contained in the capsule is diffused to extinguish the fire.
However, when the capsule bursts when the fire occurs, the capsule needs to be re-charged with the extinguishing material and re-installed in the battery pack in order to reuse the battery pack again after each time the capsules are extinguished. Thus, their use is limited and can be costly, especially since these battery packs can be re-used.
Furthermore, the capsules burst at predetermined locations. Therefore, fire extinguishing material contained in the capsule may not be accurately diffused to a fire outbreak point effectively, and as a result, the fire may not always be completely extinguished.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.